Rejection Stories So Harsh it Hurts to Read Them

Alli - July 29, 2021
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Rejection Stories So Harsh it Hurts to Read Them
Photo: The world can breed bullies sometimes. Shuttesrtock.

Rejection hurts. And it fuels all sorts of emotions: anger, sadness, shame, etc. Whether it’s from a casual encounter, a first date, or a trusted lover, it never feels good. We have all shared our fair share of heartbreak. But sometimes, there are circumstances surrounding a rejection that are so embarrassing, you feel like sinking into the ground. These people decided to take to the internet to share their most harsh rejection stories. And if you think these are bad, you should see how bad some people’s first dates are.

Double Date Disaster

“My freshman year in college I went on a double date of sorts with my friend (who is very attractive), two very attractive ladies, and myself (a solid 5/10 on a good day). We went to a water park – did the slides, wave pool, lazy river, and all the good stuff. It was a fun day. Two days later, I go over to the dorm room of the young lady who was my “half” of the double date to ask her out. She. Did. Not. Remember. Who. I. Was.

Double dates. Shutterstock.

“It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with me. It was that I was so forgettable that she did not claim to remember that I had been there with her. I’m a grown up and rejection is something I can handle, but this was a different level. And I came to find out that the other attractive lady didn’t exactly recognize me either. It turns out that both of the attractive ladies thought that my attractive friend was their “half” of the double date and both of them paid 100% attention to him and 0% attention to me the entire day. Nothing like finding out that you can spend 6 hours with two women and be so overshadowed by an attractive man so well that they don’t remember your name or what you look like.” – Rejection by drsameagle

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This “Promposal” that crashed and burned

“Tried to ask a girl to senior prom. Spent all lunch building up my courage because i was and well still am rather shy. Walk over to her at the end of lunch as we are all heading to class and I think I got as far as “Hey, how are you, so prom…” And basically as soon as she realized what I was saying just said “nope” and walked away.

Asking out a prom date can be intimidating. Shutterstock.

“I was only asking her as a friend too because well I wanted to go and i was friends with the guy she was after but he had a gf so I figured fuck it better than going alone right?” – Rejection by usernumber2020. There are some great prom-posals out there… but this one just hurts to read. She could have given him a chance to get his words out! We hope that he meets people with a bit more patience and kindness in the future.

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A broke date, a paranoid friend, and a girl who can’t catch a break

“Guy I met to go on a date with told me he lost his wallet when I got there. I said I would pay but then came up with another excuse and I got the hint, told him to f**k himself and left. This was after talking HOURS a day on the phone for a few weeks with him. I called my friend and told her what happened and I cried and she told me to hang out with her boyfriend while she was at work so I wouldn’t go home and cry.

She not only couldn’t get a good date, her friend turned the tables on her too. Shutterstock.

“So I did. She later had it in her mind I f**ked around with him because we had a good friendship. I obviously didn’t but some people are very insecure. We aren’t friends anymore.” – Rejection by PamWpg204. Wow, this girl needs to figure out how to find better people in her life. It seems she got the hint with both the excuse-making date AND her paranoid friend. Hopefully, she will figure out a trustworthy group of humans to be with.

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The girl who never grew past high school

“She said yes when I asked her out, then she avoided me and started making fun of me behind my back. A mutual friend told me what was up and I asked her if it was true. She laughed and said yes, she laughed again when I asked her why she couldn’t have just said no instead of making me feel like sh**.

People that make fun of others behind their backs are a red flag. Shutterstock.

“Edit: Just to clarify we were both in our 20’s when this happened. I didn’t think sh** like that happened after high school.” – Rejection by Cultist902. Things like that definitely should not be happening after high school. Heck, that shouldn’t even be happening during high school. But some people never grow up out of their toxic childhood habits.

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The awkward encounter with a stranger

“I was walking at a park, and I saw a guy and girl walking together. I found it a little odd since the guy was not good looking at all, and the girl was gorgeous. I got to talking to them, and I eventually asked if they were boyfriend and girlfriend. The guy immediately said yes as the girl immediately said no.” – Rejection by Ihatetoparse

This awkward encounter with a random couple takes the cake. Shutterstock.

We should start a thread where we talk about the most awkward stories we’ve witnessed as strangers. Because something like this would surely be at the top. We wonder how awkward that conversation that was between the couple when the stranger walked away. The cruel part is we will never know.

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She got dissed by a hot guy

I was snapping a guy on Snapchat, he sent me two pics of his face. And i sent him only one. Big mistake. I know why he rejected me. On a scale of 1-10 I’m probably like a 4 in looks. This guy was like a 7.5 in looks. I sent him that one Snapchat picture of me smiling and he immediately unfriended my ass. I looked like a fool. 🤣 Would anyone else like to share their rejection stories? So we can all have a good little laugh?” – Rejection by Fudge_Automatic

We don’t care how “attractive” this guy was, it sounds like he’s pretty ugly on the inside. Shutterstock.

These days, Snapchat has become a staple in dating culture. Especially if you’re young and dating. But this social media platform isn’t only good for flirting and igniting a spark, apparently it’s being used for pure evil. In the form of cruel rejections. We bet this girl is giving this guy way too much credit. You can be a 10 in looks and still be horribly unattractive. She probably dodged a bullet.

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The girl that just wanted to be sure the friend zone was clear

When I was in college, I had this female friend that I would go eat stuff with. She was pretty cool, but not at all my type. As in, I didn’t find her at all attractive, and her personality wasn’t compatible with mine in a romantic way. Excellent friend though!

She just wanted to make sure he knew he was in the “friend zone”. Shutterstock.

One day, out of nowhere, she goes “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re going to make someone a really great boyfriend one day.” I was like, “How could I take that as anything but a compliment? Thank you!” The meal went on, as did life. Years later, it occurred to me that she might have thought I was interested in her and was letting me down gently.” – Rejection by Diablo165

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A pathetic woman who bullied a guy with dwarfism

“I have a brother who is a dwarf. I watched him ask a girl he had been flirting with for awhile, out for homecoming in a busy highschool hallway. She said you must be this tall to ride this ride and put her hand an inch above his head. Then she and her friends walked away laughing like it was the greatest joke ever. It didn’t kill his self esteem forever though, he’s been married twice.” – Rejection by ronol742

The world can breed bullies sometimes. Shutterstock.

There are many sad and pathetic people out there that decide to pick on people for looks. It sounds like this woman is one of them. But it sounds like this guy dodged a bullet and went to have other meaningful relationships in his life. Let’s just hope this woman learned how to be a nicer person after high school – but we doubt it.

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This woman was so hurt by a co-worker rejecting her, she complained to HR

“I once had a female coworker confess her crush to me in the breakroom in front of other coworkers. I was caught off-guard but I rejected her as politely as possible. She immediately burst into tears and ran out of the breakroom into HR’s office where she attempted to file a complaint against me. A couple days later, her mother left me seven voicemails harassing me about rejecting her daughter.” – Rejection by FH1031

Workplace romances are usually a bad idea. Shutterstock.

Workplace romances tend to not end well. But this was the romance that never was… and still ended badly. But a bit of advice if you’re planning to confess your love to a crush in front of co-workers: just don’t. This puts everybody in a horribly awkward position. The crush is going to feel obligated to act a certain way, you’re going to open yourself up to hurt, and your co-workers are going to be privy to that personal moment. Keep that out of the workplace if you can help it.

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He should have remembered her favorite movie

“I dated this extremely uptight and entitled girl… Didn’t know it at the time. But she came to my house and told me she brought her favorite movie of all time. I asked what it was and she told me I should know because she told me what it was already. So at some point in all our conversations, she had mentioned this movie and I apparently forgot.

This guy really shouldn’t have forgotten her favorite movie… Shutterstock.

“She then refused to put the movie in, and what I thought started off as a playful joke turned into her being legitimately pissed off and cold the entire night. She refused to watch the movie saying I should have known what it was. That night ended with her leaving early and me stunned that that actually happened. That wasn’t THE end, but the beginning.” – Rejection by TheDarkKnight1035

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This girl’s dad tricked a boy into talking to him via text instead of her

“Kind of a rejection story, but a girl I had a crush on had a crappy previous relationship she had just come out of, and her father, noticing, wanted to vet any guys she started speaking to online, which I found alright enough, though strange. I thought that was limited to like, him looking at her conversations once in a while – Whose parents haven’t been overprotective every once in a while?

This dad took things into his own hands. Shutterstock.

I noticed the discrepancies between things we spoke about in person and online really differed after a week and I asked her about it after a few weeks, and she was like “You’ve been talking to my dad.” So that was kind of awkward. We remained friends (in person) for a fair few years afterward.” – Rejection by Aquario_Wolf

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A rejection, near hit-and-run, and a major plot twist (Part 1)

“I’ve been rejected before, but only one really has a ‘story’. I was working at an Einstein’s through HS and chunks of college, and I was going to be leaving for good because of a year-long study abroad trip coming up. I was training the girl they hired to replace me, and we spent the three weeks of overlap vibing pretty hard. Lots of flirting from both of us, neither one of us did much to hide that we were into each other.

Things seemed to be going pretty good. Shutterstock.

“During the last week of my employment, we were both closing down the store and I decided I was going to ask her out. I wasn’t leaving the country for another 6-8 weeks after that, I wasn’t going to be working there much longer, and I felt confident I’d get a yes so I thought I literally had nothing to lose and maybe we can have some fun for a couple of months. Before going to the office to set the alarm I told her to hang back, there was something I wanted to ask her. I could have SWORN she heard and acknowledged that.” – Rejection by Logics

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A rejection, near hit-and-run, and a major plot twist (Part 2)

“I set the alarm and head back to the restaurant to walk out the front door with her, but when I turned the corner she’s already outside the building and getting in her car. No goodbye see ya later or anything, which was unusual for us. I walk outside, lock the door, and go towards her car to ask her out. And she damn near hits me with the fucking car driving away. See, TO ME, or at least to 21-year-old me, that seemed like as solid a rejection as you can receive: a woman almost killing you to bail out of getting asked out on a date. So I dropped it and we didn’t talk much for the remaining few days I still worked there.

What a strange misunderstanding. Shutterstock.

“Fast forward a year, I’m back in the US and she looks me up on FB and we start chatting. Turns out she was a little miffed at me ever since because “you never asked me to go out sometime”. Turns out she honest to God didn’t hear me that day and still has no memory of that event. We’ve been married for 8 years and in a couple of weeks it’ll be the 11th anniversary of our first date.” – Rejection by Logics

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A harsh rejection line and a perspective gained

This guy took this rejection to heart and learned a little something from it: ” About fifteen years ago, I was at a local motorcycle rally event with a friend that was operating a sales booth. My friend was speaking with a Jack Daniels sales representative, and I was hanging back and flirting with the Jack Daniels Girls, nothing overly pushy or anything.

This motorcycle guy seems to have a pretty down to earth perspective. Shutterstock.

“Anyways, I over-confidently asked one of the girls if she wanted to grab a drink later, and she looked at me and then looked at her friends and said “I’ll tell you what, how about you go lay down in the middle of the road over there and get run over by some traffic instead”. I wouldn’t say I was crushed (no pun intended) or anything, but it definitely put my ego in check, and I’ve never, and never will again, mistake a woman in a work environment as a potential date. I felt like a pretty big douche bag and in retrospect, I am glad that the girl was so blunt and drew attention to my poor boundaries and behavior, hahaha.” – Rejection by TemporaryAnybody9

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The right person won’t care

This woman decided to be brave and honest – got rejected anyways: “Last night I went out on a date with a guy. He was honestly just what I was looking for. The date went really well. We kissed goodnight. I texted him later that night and disclosed that I have herpes. He said it was fine.

You should never be afraid to be honest about personal details. Shutterstock.

“This afternoon he texted me, apologizing, and rejecting me for having herpes. He said he appreciated me being upfront with him. Am I upset? A bit. But I know at the bottom of my heart the right person would not care. Let me say that again: THE RIGHT PERSON WOULD NOT CARE. Love all of you. Stay courageous and be true to yourselves.” – Rejection by StepEleven

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Excuse me, sir, can I go out with your dog?

“Not me, but a friend of mine had to ask permission from the girl’s father to date her. He sent him a text asking, ‘Can I go out with your daughter?’ Autocorrect changed the word ‘daughter’ to ‘dog’, though, so he ended up asking permission to take the dog out instead. Not a good first impression.” – Rejection by Fergie20020

Sometimes a dog could be better company than a human, but we’re pretty sure this isn’t what this guy had in mind. Shutterstock.

Sometimes, dogs are better company than humans. But we don’t think this was the intention of this poor guy. There are so many questions we have for this person’s friend. Did he ever get the date? Are they still together? More importantly, how is the dog doing?

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A guy who couldn’t stop laughing at his friend’s rejection

My (19F) friend (20M) and I were on the phone and he told me about how he got rejected by this girl on Instagram. He messaged her something along the lines of, ‘You’re my Aphrodite. Please bless me with your number? I’d like to worship you.’

This guy couldn’t handle his friend’s cheesy pickup line. Shutterstock.

She posted it after, making fun of it, but she blocked out his name and picture so it wasn’t that bad. The thing is, my friend is an attractive guy… his approach was just so cringey. I thought he was joking at first. I couldn’t help but laugh. He seemed genuinely hurt that I laughed and called me a bi***. I texted him after apologizing and he said that he gets he was being cringey now, but I should have been on his side. Now he’s giving me the silent treatment.” – Rejection by aitaforlaughing

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A very lovely rejection story with a sweet twist

“I was dating a guy with NO spark. But we really liked each other. A month and a half in, he sits me down and tells me what I knew the whole time – this isn’t going to work out. I loved hanging out with him and his friends because he made me feel so welcome, and I was gonna miss that a lot because I wasn’t getting that feeling from my family or my friends, so I started crying. I couldn’t stop.

What a lovely person to comfort a girl he just let down. Shutterstock.

“And he comforted me, while telling me he wanted to be friends. In the middle of all my tears, I asked why he wanted to be my friend if I was breaking down like this. And he told me everyone struggles sometimes. It was so lovely. I was actually having a pretty bad depression episode and I went on medication a few days later, and I felt a lot better about everything.” – Rejection by OddScallion

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A bully who got what was coming for him

“I can’t think of many as an adult if I’m honest, but I always remember an incident when I was around 11. I was picked to go on this summer camp type trip for a week with a bunch of kids in the year above me (12/13 year olds) because of good behaviour. I was the only 11 year old. There was a boy I’d had a crush on for a while and on the first day he asked me to be his girlfriend. Obviously we were all children so that doesn’t even mean anything! But he kept it going for the whole week, sending me notes, hugging me in the hall before we were sent to separate dorms etc.

Kids can be cruel. Shutterstock.

“On our last night I got a note asking me to meet him in the hall, when I went out the entire group was there (35-40 kids) all crying with laughter. He announced to everyone it had been an entire joke that the whole group had all been in on and he’d never be interested in an ugly teacher’s pet. As an adult, I’m obviously not remotely upset about the ‘romantic’ rejection because I was 11, ha, but the social rejection and the public humiliation aspect of it was tough. Anyway I’m 24 now and he slid into my DMs after high school and I told him to go f**k himself, which felt good.” – Rejection by lara1705

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Well he wasn’t interested… in her

It’s not exactly a rejection, but it was me being completely oblivious and optimistic because a cute boy was nice to me. I met a guy at a club meeting in college who I thought was pretty cute. He invited me to hang out a couple times to do homework or grab breakfast together in the dining hall and seemed into me-compliments and lots of eye contact and listened to me when I talked, etc. but never made a physical move. But we were both 18 year old virgins meeting in public spaces so it wasn’t unreasonable to assume he was just shy, because I certainly was.

She really couldn’t tell that he wasn’t into her – or any woman. Shutterstock.

After a while, he invited me to go see a movie, so I figured that this was like, a date. I meet up with him at the movie theater and it turned out he was going with a group of people, and it wasn’t just the two of us. That should have been a signal, but nope. I spend the first half of the movie trying to snuggle up to him, hold his arm or hand, be cute, etc. I finally started to realize that he was super not into it when I rested my hand on his knee and he picked it up and returned it to my lap. We got out of the theater, and he turned to me in front of everyone and said ‘You know I’m gay, right?’ If the ground could have opened up and swallowed me whole at that moment I would have welcomed it. I felt awful that I’d spent an hour or so trying to snuggle with someone who was uncomfortable and too polite to tell me to back off and still cringe to think about it now.” – Rejection by baby_armadillo

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A man that doesn’t deserve to be touched by any woman… ever again

“After living with my boyfriend (now-ex) for a couple of years, I was going through a bit of a depression. Things started to look up, and I was starting to put my life back together. We’d only had s*x a few times in as many months, and he mentioned that when I was ready, he’d like me to initiate. He didn’t want to pressure me. Great! He’s been super understanding so far, and this just shows how how supportive he is.

This is no way to talk to someone you love. Shutterstock.

“The next day I try to initiate because I have a cool, understanding, supportive boyfriend that I love. He stops me, and says ‘Don’t you want to lose some weight first? I don’t want you to be upset if I can’t get hard because of your belly flab’. Noped out of that relationship real fast.” – Rejection by ILikeCuteHumans

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This woman who was a little too proud of herself… and mean

“There was a really cute redhead cop or sheriff who used to come to the same gym as me and just walk on the treadmill for 3-5 miles…EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I had talked to her a few times and she seems friendly enough, smart, so I kept talking to her. No real intentions of asking her out, but I did enjoy our banter.

This woman needed to get her head out of… the clouds. Shutterstock.

“On this fateful Monday evening, as I’m wrapping up my workout and she’s walking her 500 miles just to walk 500 miles so I stop in for a quick chat. It starts off innocently enough, but pretty quickly she starts spewing some nonsense about ‘leagues’ and the audacity of certain guys to approach her and if I’m (referring to me) the best she can do, she’s just gonna give up dating altogether. I walked away without saying a word, but she followed me out with some final advice of, ‘I guess you shouldn’t talk to me on a Monday.’ I follow that sage advice, which works so well, I’ve extended it to the rest of the week.” – Rejection by deleted

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Kids can just be downright mean

“When I was like 11 I used to go to these social dance things with my friends. It wasn’t really my thing, I’ve always been introverted but they insisted I go. I remember my friends pushing me to ask this guy to dance, I didn’t want to and then he asked me, I said okay. After that my friends said it was on a dare and the dude and his friends came over throughout the night to tell me I’m ugly. So yeah, not really a rejection but probably one of the worst things that’s happened to me regarding the opposite sex.” – Rejection by PunziePunz

School dances can be a point of social distress. Shutterstock.

It’s a universally known fact that children can be the cruelest of all. Is it because they have no filter? Do they just have fewer social consequences? Who knows, but I know I’m terrified of what could come out of a kid’s mouth. This one seems particularly ruthless and mean though. This poor girl didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

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This cross-country, heartbreak rejection (Part 1)

“I dated a woman for a year then she got a job offer and moved cross country to CA for work and begged me to come with. I loved her, so I did. She was there for 3 months while I was looking for a job and getting my life sorted to come with. I visited for two weeks during this time to be with her, find a place, and interview. The visit was amazing, and we talked and video chatted everyday I was back in Florida.

This guy picked up his entire life. Shutterstock.

“She was pretty homesick, and was having trouble acclimating to everything, but was really looking forward to when I could be there with her. I land a job via phone interview, we both celebrate. Early January I’m packing the truck, and getting ready for a cross country drive, leaving my siblings and parents, all of which I’m very close with, behind.” – Rejection by AcetheAceman

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This cross-country, heartbreak rejection (Part 2)

“I notice she’s sounding weird on the phone, she’s being short on the video calls, but I chalk it up to her not being happy since she says she’s ‘fine’ and so I’m stressing trying to get there to help out. One day into my drive, I’m talking to her before bed and she didn’t say ‘I love you too’ like she normally would… I ask her what’s going on, she tells me we’ll talk when I get there.

Her dodging calls was getting suspicious. Shutterstock.

“So now I have days of mindless interstate desert driving to think about what could be going on and what’s changed. She’s not giving any details, being very short on the phone, and refusing to video chat. I’m barely sleeping at night from the stress while also driving 18 hours a day to try to get there as fast as I can. I arrive to sign my apartment lease, half move in, shower and go to see her since she’s now done with work. (She was a live-in Nanny so I couldn’t move in with her).” – Rejection by AcetheAceman

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This cross-country, heartbreak rejection (Part 3)

“I knock, she opens the door and from the look on her face I know what I’ve been of afraid of for days is true. Our relationship is over. She explains to me over the next week that she’s homesick (she’s originally from Brazil), and that she wants to go back there to be with her family. Then it comes out that she started talking with her ex and is planning on getting back together with him on her return.

This had to be a devastating loss for this guy. Shutterstock.

“I’m barely processing my emotions at this point, trying to change her mind by just sending time together. She has a flight with plans to leave, I get one week before she leaves the county. We spend time together, getting along like we always did, still big chemistry and we’re enjoying ourselves, until I’m reminded she’s still leaving. One week passes, I drive her to the airport and she flew out of my life leaving me thousands of miles from anyone I cared about. I was deeply depressed, I stayed for the duration of my 6 month lease, doing nothing but work, eat, sleep – repeat. Then drove back to FL.” – Rejection by AcetheAceman

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A scuba diving jerk and a girl who got deserted on a tropical island

“Guy I dated long distance for 6 months ghosted me on a tropical island. He worked as a scuba instructor and I was visiting for a week (my parents live on the island so I go often). He had already met my parents and come to the US to visit me. Knowing that, he chose to ghost me, but was only 2mi away at any point in time was the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced.

Note to self: avoid blonde scuba diving instructors. Shutterstock.

“I couldn’t go to a bar or restaurant without having a panic attack any time someone blonde walked in, thinking it was him. My last night I closed all of the curtains and watched Netflix, pretending to be anywhere except on that island. He started watching my instagram stories a week later and I blocked him on everything. F**king piece of sh*t.” – Rejection by tR7on

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The guy who just didn’t have the guts to be honest

“I’d been on quite a few dates with a guy over a few months and I really liked him. I was pretty sure we were moving towards a relationship, had just gone on another date a few days prior. And then he sent me this long, drawn out text message about dealing with mental health issues and how his life was up on the air and he didn’t want to drag me into that mess, etc, so he wasn’t ready for a relationship. I had no reason to not believe he was being completely genuine, so I wished him all the best and we went our separate ways, but my stupid, infatuated ass was holding out hope that maybe he’d reach out when things settled.

Guys, just be honest! Shutterstock.

A few months later, I looked him up on Facebook just for the hell of it, and he’d started dating another girl like three days after he sent me that text lol. I don’t know why he couldn’t have saved me all that trouble and just told me he had fun but didn’t want to date ME or whatever. Edit: It was worse because a month later I decided to “take a chance” (no thanks to my friends who pushed for it) and invited him to a concert I was planning on going to. I made sure to, of course, add in a bit about how I thought we’d had a great connection and all. He never responded, and I was mortified once I learned about the girlfriend. Just be straightforward, people!” – Rejection by deadsecretary

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